


Inanimate Death

by ScooterThyme



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Hollywood, Murder, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 22:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17631176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScooterThyme/pseuds/ScooterThyme
Summary: A murder at an animation studio raises questions about something Lucifer considered silly mythology, while he and Chloe struggle to sort each other out shortly after his Devil face reveal.





	Inanimate Death

When they arrived at the studio that morning, they found most of the crew nervously milling around outside in the parking lot, muttering in hushed tones.

“Honestly, I won’t claim to know much about animation, but this hardly looks very productive to me,” said Lucifer, adjusting his cufflinks as he got out of Detective Decker’s cruiser.

Chloe rolled her eyes at him. “Well yeah, finding the director dead first thing in the morning kind of put a kink in their workday.”

“I can think of several other kinks that are _far_ more entertaining.”

Chloe glared, but didn’t dignify him with a response as they ducked under the crime scene tape and into the side door of the studio.

While another officer briefed Chloe on the details of the case, Lucifer decided to go straight into nuisance-mode, scrutinizing random bits and bobs and supplies he couldn’t immediately identify. One of the larger workstations had a particularly curious collection of craft items, tools, and seemingly miscellaneous materials all laid out in various stages of production. He picked up a pair of tiny resin eyeballs and held them up against his own, grinning.

“ _Lucifer!_ ”

Recognizing the Detective’s scolding tone, he put the eyes back where he found them. “Right. So what’ve we got? This chap doesn’t exactly seem very animated.” The Devil nodded towards the dead man lying in the middle of the floor.

Ella, seemingly popping out from nowhere, launched into her typical slightly-too-cheery-for-a-crime-scene explanation. Lucifer wasn’t sure he’d ever quite get used to that.

“So the vic is Leon Hugh, 43, director. Did a lot of little commercials and spots, mostly oddball projects, with a lot of different animation studios. He’s got some minor bruising here and there, but cause of death was a surface gage to the chest. He lost a duel with an old-school tool.”

The former director in question was lying prone in the middle of the room in a pool of blood. A metal tool consisting of two spindles and a thick base was sticking straight up out of his chest, right where his heart would be. He was dressed in a simple polo and khakis, resembling at least a good 75% of everyone who’d ever worked in any sort of retail establishment. His dark blond hair had begun to recede, but nothing about his features particularly stood out. An orange crayon had fallen out of his fingers when he landed on the floor. His eyes stayed open, forever staring out at nothing.

“What exactly _is_ that?” said Chloe, creasing her brow while studying the deceased.

“Oh, the surface gage? It’s originally a toolmaker’s tool, but it used to be common with stop-motion animators too. They position the ends to point at part of their puppet to kind of mark it in 3D space before they move it, so they can have a reference for where they moved it from. Most animators don’t really use them nowadays, ‘cause they have video software they can use to reference instead. Goin’ digital, just like everything else.”

“Ok. Looks like something we can easily get some prints off of. Do we have any key suspects yet?”

“I mean... yes and no. I’m hearing that he wasn’t exactly everybody’s favorite guy to work with. Time of death is about six or eight hours ago, when everyone should’ve already gone home, but a lot of people had studio keys.”

“Alright, so I guess we’ll have to get a list of everyone who had access with a key, and start from there, then.” The Detective put her hands in her pockets, carefully scanning the scene for anything that might prove useful or interesting to the case. Her gaze fell on a crewmember anxiously rushing over to her partner. The woman's long brown ponytail flailed as she almost skidded into him.

“Please, sir, that’s not a toy!”

The young woman reached up towards Lucifer’s hand, which was holding a figure he now raised over his head and out of reach. She hopped up to try and grab it, flustered.

“That’s a very expensive puppet that we’ve been working on for _weeks_ now, please be careful with it!”

The Devil reluctantly handed over the item in question, eyeing the crewmember with skepticism.

“Oh! You seem much more concerned for this lifeless puppet than your lifeless colleague over there. Care to tell us why?”

The woman sighed. “That’s for another project, one of the animators’ personal films. It wasn’t Leon’s. Not that they’ll probably do it here now, what with all this going on.” Chloe had walked over to the pair now, raising her badge.

“Detective Decker, LAPD. Can you tell us your job, and how you knew the victim?”

“Alisha Mills, I’m a PA. Most of us here were helping with Leon’s project. It’s just a little commercial spot, but we haven’t had anything else for ages. We had to take what we could get. Leon was the director and a co-producer.”

“Can you tell me a bit about him? Do you know of anyone who’d have anything to gain by killing him?”

Alisha paused, her eyes taking on a deer-in-headlights glaze for the briefest of moments before she recovered.

“Leon was… he was weird, even by Hollywood standards. I think the studio kind of regretted agreeing to his project, but they were desperate.” The woman was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, and the Detective and her partner picked up on it.

“What do you mean, they regretted working with him?”

“Like I said, he was weird. Like, _really_ weird.”

“I’ve worked in the industry myself, so try me. Weird, _how_ , exactly?” probed Chloe.

“It’s gonna sound stupid.”

Lucifer saw his opportunity and lept for it. He stepped closer to Alisha, bowing down a bit and peering straight into her face.

“But you want to tell us anyway, don’t you?”

The PA slowly looked up into his eyes, nervous. Acting on a gut feeling, Chloe put a hand on the front of her partner’s shoulder, pushing him back slightly. No need to freak out the very first possible witness--or suspect--they encountered.

“I don’t think this is the time for that, Lucifer.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow at her, but let it go. Alisha blinked a few times, recovering quickly. “Some people said he was some kind of, I dunno, ‘energy vampire’ or something like that. Like, he just drained everyone. All the time. He was hard to talk to.”

“ _Energy_ vampire?”

“Yes, it’s a bit of hoo-doo mythology. They’re people who just seem to suck the life out of everybody around them,” said Lucifer. “And not in a fun way,” he added, grinning.

“Yeah, he was exactly like that,” Alisha lit up a little, clearly appreciative that someone understood her. “I know it sounds dumb, but that’s the easiest way to describe him. Like, he’d stand there and just… _talk at you_ for literally hours about piddly stuff that didn’t matter, or things we’d already finished. It was really just a nightmare to work with him. But sometimes you get those kinda projects.”

“Was there anybody in particular who disliked him maybe more than everybody else?”

“Not that I can think of, not really. We all just wanted to get away from him, honestly. I’m not even going to put this project on my resume. I just want to forget about it already, especially now. There’s hardly even any work to do on it, and I still go home exhausted.” The woman’s eyes were weary, and she clearly wasn’t putting any effort into an act. Even Lucifer looked at her in pity. Chloe softened her stance further.

“You said you’re a PA. Would you be able to get us a list of everyone who had access to the studio at night, or at least everyone who had keys?”

“Yeah, sure, I can do that.”

“Thank you, Alisha.” The Detective handed over her card. “We’ll be in touch.” The woman nodded, and headed toward the studio office.

Lucifer folded his hands down in front of him, leaning back slightly as he watched the crewmember leave them.

“So... It seems we may have quite a few suspects on our hands.”

“Yeah,” sighed his partner. “Maybe the entire studio.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first case fic! I'll apologize ahead of time for the update schedule, because there isn't one. I'll do my best not to leave this hanging for _too_ long at any one time, but life happens. Well, except for that poor sod Leon.


End file.
